Mikasa vs. Captain Levi – now there’s a fight I’d pay to see!
Glad to see they’re keeping up the pacing of the series so
far. There’s more to it, but it’s still written as an action show, and excels
best when it focuses on fights with the Titans. Plus, they’re finally going out
beyond the walls, which is bound to get interesting, and would be even if the
preview didn’t set up that they’re about to run into something unusual. I’m still
curious about who killed the Titans, but focusing on the investigation isn’t
the best idea. It’s bound to take a long time regardless, because it could literally be anyone in the
military. There’s gotta be no shortage of soldiers with more personal grudges
against the Titans, because Jean is most definitely not the only one who’s had
a friend die messily and pointlessly at their hands, or who are just plain
uneasy about two of them being inside the walls, no matter that they’re staked through
like acupuncture cushions. There’s also the possibility that it isn’t someone in the military. If this
society can have an underground slave trade, it can have a black market able to
get its hands on military gear, and powerful people willing to use shady
connections. Or it could be whatever Eren’s father’s part of that’s
responsible, but they might fall under the latter.
Also – the Survey Corps has had 60% casualties in two years.
And they’re expecting 30% casualties on the next expedition. In any other
situation someone, probably several someones, would be getting court martialed
for something like gross incompetence or criminal negligence with a casualty
rate like that, and any military undertaking with casualty projections like
high would get scrapped. But this isn’t other situations, so Commander Erwin
and his officers get to keep their posts, because in all honesty that probably
shows they’re doing a good job by
keeping as many alive as they are. It’s a reminder of just how desperate and
unconventional the situation is and, most importantly, how much guts the main
characters have for joining. Well, Eren’s probably still too angry to care, and
Mikasa’s already kind of a badass, but the others, they’re really brave. I have
no idea how I’d actually feel in circumstances like theirs, but knowing about
myself as I am now, I’m pretty sure I could never
do something like that – one wrong move, one moment of inattention, and chomp! I like not getting eaten, thanks.
Genshiken: Second Season [ep. 4, Beards and Boobs]
Have those girls at ComiFest
shown up before? I mean the ones selling doujinshi, not Mean Girl and her
friend. It’s been awhile since I saw the actual second season, so I don’t
remember if they’ve been in the show before or not. But they aren’t given any
introduction, so I can only assume the viewer is meant to already know who they
are. I probably just forgot about them.
And if I was the betting type,
I’d wager what Mean Girl doesn’t want to tell Ogiue is that her middle school
boyfriend has since come out as gay. Possibly because what Ogiue did made him
realize it, which does sound like it could help Ogiue feel a bit better about
the whole thing. It’s still not something she should’ve done without his
consent, but if it helped him become truer to himself, at least some good came
of it. Mean Girl maybe had a crush on him as well, which would by one way to
explain why she has a chip on her shoulder about the whole thing.
Stella Women’s Academy [ep. 4 – Learn to Hit the Target Without Firing]
Until now I was assuming the way
Yura kept imagining the battlefield as a ‘real’ version of whatever they were
playing was just that, her imagination, or not even that, just a way to make
things more visually interesting during intense moments. But now it looks like
she actually is seeing things, somehow. It’s weird. Granted, you could still
argue that it’s all in her head, and she heard Sono call the gun Chojiro once while
half-listening and didn’t remember that she had. But then Rento gets caught in
her vision of deity-Chojiro’s final battle, which seems to clear all doubt that
it actually happened. I love her reaction (‘I knew that cake tasted funny!’). The really weird part is, I suspect
this will never come up again. It was all just some sort of vision quest to
help Yura learn to shoot better. I’m probably dwelling on it a bit too much since
it’s not the point of the episode – Yura coming to understand that there’s more
than one way to play airsoft games, and more importantly, more than one way to
win them, is. It’s pretty typical ‘you win as long as you’re having fun’ stuff,
though (and she understandably still wants to, you know, actually win on occasion), and it’s the imagination parts that
stood out to me.
That being said, I feel like I
should say something about the part when Sono opens up a little about her
mentor, because that part isn’t just ‘you win as long as you’re having fun’ stuff,
so I’m going to try. It does highlight a potential issue with this series –
that it’s about a bunch of teenagers using realistic-looking equipment to play
games which simulate something that most definitely isn’t a game. And it’s
interesting that Sono continues to play them, when she’s lost someone so close
to her because of war. But it sounds like she does continue because she feels it’s
the best way to honor his memory, in that it allows her to remember what he
taught her and pass it on to others, like she does with Yura. The idea, I
think, is that while airsoft games can be fun, if done properly they’re also a
way to teach a healthy respect for guns and violence, in that they’re dangerous
and shouldn’t be taken lightly. After all, to play they have to use walled-off
areas and wear safety goggles; that alone is a reminder that what they’re doing
is more dangerous than a typical game. And maybe that’s the real point of the episode. No idea if that’s the
intended idea, or if it’ll ever come up again, but hopefully it makes sense.
The Eccentric Family [ep. 4 – Battle of the Daimonji Leisure Cruisers]
Not a lot happened this episode,
but we did learn a bit more about Yasaburo’s father, specifically how he
intervened in a feud between two tengu families, which I assume will turn out
to have played some part in the reasons behind his murder. The air battle
between the Shimogamos and the Ebisugawas was also at least fun to watch, but
the music when the latter showed up was kinda disappointing; wasn’t pirate-y
enough. Also, if you’re worried about someone getting too close to the edge of
a flying house, why not just have guard rails you can slot in when it’s in the
air or something? Yeah, that’s all I got.
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